


Your Modern Family

by HDO



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, McGarrett House, Moving In Together, Multi, Ohana, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HDO/pseuds/HDO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Yeah, fun fact, I live here now too, which apparently someone forgot to mention to our new roommate." Danny said tartly to Steve.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Oh." Steve said dumbly. "Yeah…I was going to tell you, Chin."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Danny turned to pick his box back up with a dramatic sigh.</i>
</p>
<p>After Malia dies, Steve convinces Chin to move into his house with him. What he finds he doesn't expect, but Chin loves and appreciates what he has all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Modern Family

**Author's Note:**

> So I said to myself, H, if you're going to spend so much time in this fandom, you might as well stop being a lurker and actually contribute something to it. I haven't written fanfiction since middle school, which was a solid decade ago, so that's weird. 
> 
> As a warning, this piece does illustrate Chin's grief after losing Malia. If you're dealing with grief yourself, this could either be cathartic and affirming, or too close to home. You know best how you're feeling right now, so I just want to let you know what you're getting into.

Chin tried to fend off Steve’s offer for several weeks. He was fine staying at his and Malia’s house. More importantly, he didn’t want to leave. It was the place that they had made into their home. He couldn’t bear to take down all of the things she had so carefully arranged, clean and remove all of the things that still carried her scent. This was all he had left of her; how dare he erase this and run away?

But after a few months of paying the mortgage bill, he had to admit defeat. He couldn’t delude himself anymore that her life insurance and his savings would cover the gap forever. Without Malia, he couldn’t afford their house. 

When Chin haltingly answered Steve’s latest offer with that fact, Steve made another, different offer that made Chin nearly cry.

“I have a lot of money saved up from being in the military all those years. And my house was all paid off a long time ago. Why don’t I…help you with your mortgage bill?” Steve looked at him hesitantly. 

“No. I can’t let you do that,” Chin refused quietly. As genuine and well meaning as Steve was with that offer, he knew that that was veering into the absurd. He had to face the inevitable.

“No, I’ll just take you up on your first offer. I’ll move in with you.”

 

Chin, with Steve and Danny’s help, moved only the things he needed to Steve’s house the following weekend. They decided that everything else could stay at his and Malia’s house in the mean time until the house was sold. 

He noticed a basket full of girl’s toys next to the couch. “Whose are those?” he asked.

“Oh.” Danny paused on the way to Chin’s soon-to-be bedroom and looked at the basket over a box in his arms, “Yeah, those are Grace’s.” 

“Wow, she must have Steve wrapped around her little finger if she’s getting this kind of real estate at the McGarrett compound,” Chin joked. 

Danny set the box down on the coffee table and looked at Chin as if he was dense. “Yeah…because I live here too.” 

After a beat, Chin said, “Oh.” 

Danny’s mouth went into a thin line. Steve walked through the front door with another box. 

“Yeah, fun fact, I live here now too, which apparently _someone_ forgot to mention to our new roommate.” Danny said tartly to Steve.

“Oh.” Steve said dumbly. “Yeah…I was going to tell you, Chin.” 

Danny turned to pick his box back up with a dramatic sigh.

 

About a week later, Chin had taken it upon himself to do the household laundry and was delivering a freshly folded stack of Danny’s to the other spare bedroom.

Danny quickly followed Chin to the bedroom’s door. “I can take that, buddy.”

“Don’t worry, brah, I’m already here.” Chin knocked open the door with his elbow and walked in. “Huh. This is a very purple butterfly room, Danny. Care to explain?”

Danny shoved his hands in his pockets rocked on his heels. “Grace stays in here on the weekends I have her. Which, by the way, is next weekend, what a pleasant reminder.” Danny pulled his hands out and reached for the pile of laundry in Chin’s arms. “Here, really, I got it.”

Chin chuckled as he passed the pile over. “Yeah, to put into your lavender dresser, that’s a nice touch from a very nice father.”

“Sure,” Danny said, and put the laundry on the pink and purple butterfly bedcovers.

 

Chin stood on the beach behind Steve’s house under a big, full moon. He was having trouble sleeping, even with the sleeping pills his doctor had prescribed him. That was mostly because he wasn’t taking them most nights, which he knew was foolish. But he felt guilty taking them unless he was nearly delirious from sleep deprivation, because he didn’t _want_ to stop thinking about her.

Chin sighed. The world spun a little when he stood still like this. Maybe he was at that point of near delirium tonight. He decided he’d take a pill and then read a book from the McGarrett library to distract him until he fell asleep. 

When he stepped inside, he heard someone moving quickly up the creaking staircase. Cop instincts pricked, he darted into the living room on light feet. 

When he reached the living room, he stopped, taken aback. “Danny? Why are you going upstairs?”

“Oh.” Danny halted and turned to look down at Chin from the top of the landing. He scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, the toilet downstairs isn’t working. I was gonna go use McGarrett’s.” 

Chin frowned. “Really? That’s odd, it was working just about an hour ago.”

Danny stood frozen with a bewildered look on his face. Then he blurted out, “Steve and I are together.” 

Chin opened and closed his mouth. “Oh.”

 

The next morning, when Steve came in from his swim to find Chin and Danny drinking coffee at the kitchen table, Danny abruptly told him, “he knows.”

“Oh.” Steve paused for only a moment from drying himself. He resumed by vigorously rubbing his hair, and then draped the towel over his shoulders. He asked Chin in a carefully casual tone, “So, that okay?”

Chin huffed out a laugh. “Steve, that’s not something I would ever have any right to have an opinion on. I was just surprised, is all. Why didn’t you guys think you could tell me?”

Danny worried the edge of an old placemat. “We were going to eventually.”

“We just didn’t know how to tell everyone.” Steve finished for him.

 

With Chin’s prodding, Steve and Danny eventually prepared to tell the rest of the team.

When both Kono and Max had happened to be in the bullpen with then, Chin gave Steve a look that prompted him to get started. When Steve started hesitating, Chin elbowed him in the ribs and cleared his throat. Danny, on his other side, did the same, but with exaggerated feeling. 

“Why am I the one that has to do this?” Steve snipped at Danny. 

“Just get it over with!” Danny snapped back.

“Okay, _fine!_ Guys, Danno and I are together.” There was a silent pause. “As in, together-together.”

Danny scrubbed his face with a hand. “Are you now going to tell them that we don’t just like each other, we _like-like_ each other?”

Kono grinned slowly. “Oh. You know, something had seemed fishy. So it turns out it’s a house of bromance _and_ romance.”

Steve awkwardly put an arm around Danny’s shoulders, which got an exasperated hand gesture out of Danny. Then, as an afterthought, he put the other arm around Chin’s shoulders. 

Max studied them. “These are interesting male dynamics. Fascinating.”

 

Chin couldn’t lie to himself that he was jealous when Steve and Danny would say goodnight to him and go upstairs together, while he went to go sleep in Steve’s childhood twin bed, alone. Just a few months ago, he was going to sleep in his own bed that was in his own house with the love of his life curled up against him. 

Even with this jealousy that sometimes surprised him with its ugliness, most of the time he couldn’t help but feel happy for his friends. In public, they acted much as they had before. But because he lived under the same roof as them, he saw them with their guards down, and they had a surprising amount of tenderness for each other. For all of Danny’s verbal crankiness with his partner, he seemed to have no problem doling out physical affection in the form of impromptu neck and backrubs whenever they watched TV together. And Steve had a fondness for leaning down that distance between the two of them and giving Danny kisses on the forehead. Watching them made Chin ache to hold and be held by Malia again, but he could not begrudge two such love-starved people for the love and affection they had for each other.

So when Chin found Catherine in their kitchen late one night, drinking a glass of water in nothing but panties and a men’s button down shirt, he was shocked. 

Catherine startled. “Chin!” She smacked her free hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were asleep.”

“It eludes me sometimes.” Chin studied her darkly. “I thought you had already gone home.”

“Yeah.” She hesitated. “Yeah, I was really tired, so I decided to sleep for awhile in the spare bedroom. I figured I would wake up before too long and make my way back home then.” Catherine gulped down the rest of her water and set the glass by the sink. “Alright, well, I should go now. I will see you soon, I bet, so until then!” She rushed out of the kitchen, and within less than a minute, Chin heard her leave out the front door. 

Chin knew she was lying. Catherine had come over that evening to have dinner with the three of them. Once they had moved to the living room after the meal, he had dozed off on the recliner on accident. He had woken up a few hours later to an empty, dark room; Steve and Danny must had seen how tired he had been and just let him sleep. As he had walked to his own bedroom, he had passed the other bedroom, and no one had been sleeping in Grace’s bed. 

When Chin checked the driveway and didn’t see the Camaro, he felt livid. 

 

When Steve came downstairs for his morning swim, Chin cut him off in the lanai. 

Steve saw his dark expression and looked at him with concern. “Chin, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong, Steve? I saw Cath as she slipped out earlier. Then I went outside and noticed Danny’s car was gone. Where’s Danny, Steve? More importantly, does he know that you’re _cheating_ on him?” 

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh.” 

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ What the hell, Steve,” Chin snarled. 

Steve took a step towards him. “Chin, it’s not what you think.”

“How the hell is it not what I think?”

“Chin.” Steve looked around the room, agitated. “Danny’s upstairs. He’s been upstairs all night.”

That’s when it clicked for Chin that Catherine had been wearing one of Danny’s shirts.

“Danny’s car is in the shop right now. Remember, we had to take it in yesterday?”

Chin put up a hand. “Wait. How does that work?”

“What? I took Danny and I home in my truck, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Chin waved the hand up in the air dismissively. “No, no, the three of you.”

“Oh, yeah. Uh, well.” Steve gestured with his hands vaguely, looking uncomfortable. “After Danny and I started up with each other, I had to go and break off what I had with Cath. She was a little upset, but overall she took it pretty well, we never had anything that serious anyway. I wanted to stay friends with her, of course, so I invited her to hang out with Danny and I a few times. But then she and Danny really hit it off, so I…suggested something. And they were both into it.” Steve paused, and dropped his hands. 

“Oh.” Chin said, not really sure what else to say.

Steve rushed back in. “You see, Danny and I are the main thing. But we have Cath, too. And if she ever meets someone special, or just doesn’t want to do this anymore, she’s more than free to go. But right now, we have…something, the three of us. And it’s really nice.”

“Oh.” Chin repeated. “Well…that’s great, I wish you guys only happiness.” 

Steve gave him a hesitant smile. Against his better judgment, Chin felt endeared with this uncharacteristically flustered and uncertain Steve. “Thanks, man. Uh, hey, you want to go for a swim with me?”

Chin huffed. “As long as we don’t hit it off too much in the process, sure.”

 

The next day at work, when Kono stepped out of the bullpen for a moment, Steve turned to Danny and told him seriously, “He knows.”

“Oh.” Danny said flatly. “Shit.”

“Danny, it’s fine,” Chin reassured him.

Danny ran a hand through his hair and let out a desperate laugh that seemed to say, _my life is insane._

“Quit being dramatic,” Steve griped. 

Danny shot Steve a dirty look. Then he looked at Chin with a consternated expression, as if he were waiting for Chin to start telling him all the reasons why what they were doing was wrong. Chin just raised his eyebrows at him in response.

“Well,” Danny said crisply, and moved to brace both hands on the edge of the tech table. He breathed in and then out theatrically, and looked up at Chin again. “Chin Ho Kelly, welcome to your modern family.”

Laughter bubbled up out of Chin. “Well thank you.”

Kono walked back in, looking bright. “What’d I miss?”

Steve and Danny’s simultaneous looks of poorly hidden panic made Chin want to laugh again. “Another day, couz.”

 

Chin was up late in the kitchen again, tired and restless but unsure of what to do with himself.

He heard the stairs creak softly with gentle footsteps. “Chin?” Catherine’s voice behind him was small and quiet in the otherwise silent house. 

He turned towards her. “Hey. Why are you up? You going home?”

She leaned against the frame of the kitchen entryway. This time she was wearing one of Steve’s t-shirts and a pair of Danny’s boxers. “No, it’s just hard sometimes to stay asleep when spending the night with those two, king size bed or not. They’re like puppies with all of their kicking, I swear.”

Chin chuckled. “Can’t say I have the pleasure of knowing that experience.”

Catherine gave a short chuckle back before falling silent, chewing her bottom lip. “Hey, Chin, are you really alright with this?”

He gave her a soft, tired smile. “Hey, if you make each other happy, who am I to judge? I just wish I had known all of this upfront, if anything.”

She smiled. “Yeah, sorry about that again. We just weren’t sure how to tell everyone.”

“Understandable. I still gave Steve and Danny a lecture about lies by omission, however. They’ve got three strikes now.”

Catherine laughed softly. “I adore them, but they need a stern talking to occasionally.” She looked around the kitchen and then back at Chin. “Hey, you want some tea?”

“Sure.” Chin got up and walked over to the tea selection. 

“I’ll get the mugs and water going.” Catherine moved to the cabinet with the mugs. “And I’ll have whatever you’re having.” 

Catherine bustled around with filling the mugs with water and sticking them in the microwave while Chin picked out two packets of green tea for them. 

They met back at the table where Chin had been sitting. They were silent for a little while, which wasn’t as uncomfortable as Chin thought it would be.

“Chin…” Catherine started. “Chin, I’m curious, why did you move in if the house isn’t sold yet?”

He studied the tea packets in his hand and took several moments before he started speaking. 

“It’s strange, that Steve and I can stand to be here, where his father and my ex-partner was killed. But Steve said that it’s different.” He sighed. “Part of me didn’t want to leave our home, ever. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get in our bed. I tried sleeping in the living room, but it was easy to see the kitchen from there.”

The microwave beeped in the background, signaling it was done. “Oh,” Catherine said softly. Chin stood up and went to go get the mugs.

 

Just as Chin had nudged Steve and Danny into telling others about first their relationship and then their relationship with Catherine, Steve and Danny gently nudged Chin along with the process of selling his house. A few months into their cohabitation, the house was finally sold.

The three of them, Catherine, and Kono were at his house, quietly packing away everything in boxes before the movers came in the next day. They had offered to pack everything for him, but he insisted he wanted to participate. This was his last chance to be in their space, and he wasn’t going to miss it out of cowardice.

His heart had still squeezed painfully the moment they had walked in, though. The air was a little stale, but it still smelled faintly as it had before: a mixture of her, of him, of the house, and of the ocean. His eyes pricked with unexpected tears, but he tamped them down just as quickly as they appeared. He had to show her he was strong, so he was going to get through this. He had poured her into the ocean, so he could manage to take their things and put them into boxes.

He knew it was stupid to go there first, but he gravitated to their bedroom. After placing the empty cardboard box he’d carried in on their bed, he gingerly opened their closet. Her scent washed over him, and he froze. Everyone else was outside the room, so he let the tears that suddenly blurred his vision roll down his cheeks. 

He methodically took her blouses, her skirts, and her dresses off their hangers, folded them up, and placed them in the box one by one. Eventually he cleared out enough to find a long, thin box. Unsure of what it was, he opened it cautiously.

He pulled back carefully folded tissue paper, and his fingers touched raw silk fabric. It was her wedding dress.

“Oh,” he whispered involuntarily, rushing out of his lips like the air had been pressed out of his lungs. Trembling, he lifted the dress out of its box and held it to his chest.

“Chin,” Steve said quietly from the doorway. Chin heard Steve’s steps on the carpet as he approached. He didn’t answer, didn’t even dare move.

“Hey.” Steve stood by his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. With that gentle touch, Chin felt like he broke. He pressed his face into the fabric and felt a sob rip out of him, painful. Then they wouldn’t stop. 

“Hey.” Steve picked up his hand and wrapped his arm around Chin’s shoulders. Chin felt Steve turn to rest his forehead on the top of his head. Distantly, he heard someone shut the door behind them.

Chin felt as if a dam had been broken and an unstoppable torrent was flowing out of him. He knew he was ruining the silk, but he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to stop. She was gone.

When he was emptied out, he felt Steve lift his head off of his. Chin cautiously looked up at his face and saw that Steve’s eyes were wet with unshed tears.

 

When they had finally finished packing everything, they sat outside on the front porch and drank beers. 

“Chin, what do you want to do now?” Steve asked, breaking the silence. 

Chin thought about it. Then he gave Steve a small smile. “Let’s have a party.”

“Oh.” Steve smiled back. “Sounds good.”

 

It was a simple affair. Kono stayed with him at Steve’s house while Steve and Catherine went to go grocery shopping and Danny went to go pick up Grace. Kono had chattered on about everything and nothing; he knew she was filling the air, trying to distract him. Even though he could see right through her intention, he was still so happy for it. 

Once the food arrived, Steve grilled and Cath and Kono made side dishes. Grace forcibly dragged Chin out by the wrist to the backyard to go build a sand castle, very likely at the instruction of Danny, and Danny followed along with a huge grin on his face. At some point, Max came over with carefully baked homemade sweets, and Kamekona arrived with a gratuitous sampling of his shrimp dishes. 

They ate on the lanai with the sun setting in the background. Steve lit some tiki torches once night settled in. They drank, ate more, talked, joked around. There was a gentle buzz with all of their good energy, but nothing was too excited, just laidback and easy. 

Max and Kamekona said their goodnights eventually, but everyone else stayed. Grace was the first to crash, so much so that Danny had to carry her to her bed, but none of the rest of them lasted that much longer either. 

Chin was lying back in the living room’s recliner, listening to the ocean waves and Kono’s soft snores from the couch. Grace was in her purple butterfly room and Danny was upstairs with Steve. Chin let Catherine have his bed, since Grace didn’t yet know about how she fit into Steve and Danny’s relationship. They hadn’t figured out how to tell her yet, but that was okay.

When he heard someone walking down the stairs, Chin slipped his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. He could tell it was Danny by the footfalls. After checking on Grace and then getting a glass of water, Danny came back to the living room and paused in the middle of it. 

Chin heard him set his glass down and pick something up. He nearly smiled when he felt Danny gently drape a blanket over him and tuck it carefully around his arms. He hovered for a moment, and then gently pressed a kiss to Chin’s forehead.

Danny took his glass and slipped quietly back up the stairs. Chin heard the bed creak lightly as he got back into it. There was a soft mumble, probably Steve, and then it was just Kono’s soft snores again.

There were so many people he loved in this house with him, all sleeping soundly. Maybe this wasn’t what he had planned for, but as a second choice, it was more than he could have ever asked for.

Sleep was upon him without even trying. He dreamt of Malia.

**Author's Note:**

> Some things I should point out:
> 
> 1\. I made Catherine get caught in Steve's kitchen wearing a men's shirt and no pants again. Sorry, Cath.
> 
> 2\. I write Steve as kinda dopey and am a little mean to him. Sorry, Steve.
> 
> 3\. This fic was inspired by Chin's scenes in his house in 3.01, plus him saying that he came to work because he couldn't be at home any longer in 3.02. I was all, "oh Chin, bb, how hard that must be, ily." And then when I thought about where he could go...CASA MCGARRETT!!1
> 
> 4\. This fic was also inspired but whatever the fuck the creators are doing with Steve and Cath and then Steve and Danny. When Steve and Cath were being all "teehee bf/gf" in 3.01, it was cute and expected. [But then this fucking happened.](http://fuckyeahfive0.tumblr.com/post/32587050639/sicrazy-pl-tweeted-the-same-pic-with-better#notes) My poor fangirl brain could only compute all of this information by making Steve/Danny/Cath OT3 my new headcanon. 
> 
> 5\. Everyone says "oh" a lot in this fic? I started noticing myself doing it repeatedly, so I decided to just make it a thing. I even started using it in ~dramatic~ ways near the end, because I think I'm all clever and shit.
> 
> 6\. (HAHA I ALMOST FORGOT TO ADD CHIN AS A CHARACTER WHEN I WAS FILLING OUT THE POST.)
> 
> So, anyhow, thanks for reading. <3


End file.
